Speculative Fiction—an all-encompassing genre created to describe stories of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and other stories that have an element of “What if...” in them. A story in speculative fiction is one that adds an element of the unreal, or asks, what would become of our society if history took a different direction at some important event? Fiction with a little something extra thrown in.—William D. Richards

Monday, March 5, 2018

Frozen Shadows And Other Chilling Stories by Gene O'Neill

About Frozen Shadows And Other Chilling Stories:

Hitch a ride with the master of setting as he blends and bends genres
with science-rich, thought-provoking short stories. “Buy the ticket,
take the ride.”

“A maestro of the field, Gene O'Neill's
stories are consistently well-executed. He writes with authority, depth,
and loads of worldly and writerly experience, and delivers fascinating
stuff.” – Darren Speegle

Along the way you will travel to the top
of Mt. George, up and down Napa Valley, through Sacramento, and into
the heart of the Bay Area, to the ‘Loin in San Francisco, Hotel Reo,
Chapel of the Chimes, the back streets of Oakland, and other familiar
dark places. The stories explore quantum entanglement, Visual Migraine Events, electro-shock treatment, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Tourette’s syndrome experimentally treated with Temporary Deep Brain Stimulation. And as you read you may start to notice all these stories are connected in a way.

Includes:

“Frozen Shadows” – Coming of age autobiographical

“The Algernon Effect” – A transgressive love story

“Transformations at the Inn of the Golden Pheasant” – A damaged vet describes a bizarre transformation

“On the Right Side of the Road” – An ex-con suffering from Visual Migraine Effects may just save the world

“3-Dot People” – An amnesiac man drops literally into the Tenderloin of San Francisco

“A Faint Scent of Musky Lime” – A fan of the writer Tom Really finds himself experiencing one of Reamy’s horrific stories

“At the Lazy K” – A historic epic of a ghost plaguing a rehab clinic on an old ranch

Excerpt:

FROZEN
SHADOWS

Part
One

Northern California

1.

Mysterious Ailment in Mother Lode

A
rare childhood disorder has reared its ugly head in Sutter Creek in the heart
of Northern California, gold country. In the last year, seven youngsters,
ranging in age from eight to twelve, have been stricken down by a disorder that
is mystifying local medical experts. The youngsters have all been hospitalized
at Sutter Amador Hospital in nearby Jackson, with very similar symptoms that
include severe headache/anemia/malnutrition/ongoing blood loss/low white blood
cell counts. But the underlying cause(s) of these symptoms stubbornly eludes
hospital staff. A half dozen specialists have been consulted and are also
stumped as to the exact nature of the ailment. Several think it may be an
exotic virus(s), which has not been isolated by testing as yet. A pediatric
oncologist feels it could be a rare form of childhood leukemia, but if so,
specific cause(s) remain undetermined. Local press directs attention to the
possible carcinogenic conditions remaining at several gold mines now abandoned
near Sutter Creek, where all seven youngsters lived and played. In any event,
two of the children have reached the critical life-threatening stage.

—Sacramento
Bee, June 10, 1962

2.

When
I was six-years-old, I went to live with my grandparents in Sutter Creek.

Shortly
thereafter, I met a beautiful girl named, Bell. And together, Bell and I would
confront an evil man who cast no shadow. These three interrelated events would
significantly influence the course of my life…

3.

June 1956—

“You
will love living in the country with them, Sean,” I remembered my mother saying
when she visited me that last Saturday before I left Children’s Hospital in San
Francisco. I had been there for over six months, recovering from polio, which I
had unfortunately contracted just shortly before the Sabin vaccine became
available.

“As
soon as I’m on my feet financially I will come and collect you,” my single
mother promised.

I
never knew my father. He died—five months after I was born—in December of 1950
near the Chosin Reservoir in Korea, part of the famed General Chesty Puller led
1st Marine Division breakout.

My
father left the standard $10,000 military life insurance policy and little
else. At the time, Mother had been a housewife, uneducated with very few
outside job skills. With the insurance money thinly stretched out and
supplemented by Mom taking in other people’s ironing, we just barely struggled
by for six years. Then, I got real sick
and the medical bills began to pile up. The good news was that my mother had
been offered an excellent opportunity to temporarily move in with her sister
and brother-in-law in Sacramento and work full time at their rapidly growing
family nursery—The Lone Oak Tree. She
dearly loved gardening and tending plants. So, Mom was upbeat and joyful that
Saturday afternoon, enthusiastically telling me all about her new job in a new
town.

Inside the e-book is a link for a huge giveaway of four signed Gene O'Neill titles and an artwork print signed by the artist.

Giveaway open until March 16, 2018

About Gene O'Neill:

Gene has seen over 180 of his
stories and novellas published, several reprinted in France, Spain, and Russia.
Some of these stories have been collected in Ghost Spirits, Computers
& World Machines, The Grand
Struggle, In Dark Corners, Dance of the Blue Lady, The Hitchhiking Effect, and Lethal Birds. He has seen six novels
published. Gene has been a Stoker finalist twelve times. In 2010 Taste of Tenderloin won the haunted
house for collection; in 2012 The Blue
Heron won for Long Fiction. Upcoming releases include the four TPBs in the Cal Wild Chronicles from Written
Backwords Press, a number of short stories, and a novelette. A series of two
novels in The White Plague Chronicles
will come out in 2018—The Sarawak Virus
in the summer, Pandemic in the
winter. Also out in 2018, Entangled Soul,
a collaborative novella, with Chris Marrs.

Gene
lives in the Napa Valley with his wife Kay. He has two grown children, Gavin,
who lives in Oakland, and Kaydee who lives in Carlsbad and rides herd on his
two

g-kids,
Fiona and TJ.

When
he isn’t writing or visiting g-kids, Gene likes to read good fiction or watch
sports—all of them, especially boxing.

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